One of the more recognized and effective first aid procedures in reviving accident victims is mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This procedure is implemented for those patients who, for one reason or another, have either ceased respiratory functions or have only limited respiratory functions. Example of such patients include drowned victims, electric shock victims and other accident victims who have their respiratory systems traumatized. Such victims often need assistance, through artificial means, for respirating until the autonomic nervous system is again able to operate and control the respiratory system.
While elaborate respirating apparatus is usually available in hospital facilities, these accident victims often require immediate respiratory aid prior to being moved to established medical facilities. In the past, first aid personnel have relied on the technique known as "mouth-to-mouth resuscitation" as a means of performing artificial respiration on various traumatized accident victims. The mouth-to-mouth resuscitation technique is a procedure wherein the first aid personnel inhale air, places his/her mouth on the open mouth of the victim and the forcefully exhales the air into the victims lungs, thereby providing a source of replenishing oxygen for the victims circulatory system. Next, the first aid provider presses on the victims chest to force air out of the lungs thereby causing the victim to exhale, after which the cycle is repeated.
The success of the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation technique has proven its validity over the course of years so that its value as an emergency care procedure is unquestioned. However, in recent times, concern over the transmission of various diseases has caused emergency care administrators such as paramedics, police and the like to become reluctant to implement mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Such personnel fear contracting a disease from the accident victim through contact with the person's saliva, mucous and exhaled air. Not the least of these fears has been the recent widespread appearance of that disease known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, which is thought to be transmitted only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of the disease carrier. The fear of other communicable diseases which are thought to be readily transmitted by contact with another's bodily fluids or exhaled air stream is prevalent, as well.
Thus, while many emergency medical assistance personnel recognize the need to implement artificial respiration on accident victims, these persons are placed in a dilemma since, by attempting to save the victim's life, they may, themselves, contract a serious and even fatal disease. As a result, many medical personnel have declined to provide emergency mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This in turn has lead to literally tens of thousands of deaths of accident victims who otherwise may have been saved through the artificial respiration technique.
Accordingly, a dramatic need has been recognized by the present invention for a simple medical device which can act as in interface between an emergency care administrator and a patient since that artificial respiration maybe given in a manner similar to mouth to mouth resuscitation while, at the same time, reducing the danger and fear of disease contamination from the patient. The present invention has been developed to address this need.